"P" for "Provocation" and "DD" for "Double Standards"

Today, my posts focused on lies, anti-Semitism, and conspiracy theories.

This post will deal with an offshoot of this, which is double standards & hypocrisy.  This post is in response to the condemnation over Israel's building in (East) Jerusalem.

Excerpt from JPost:

Clearly, both Clinton and Hague are suffering from “selective provocation syndrome,” which is when one deems Israel’s actions to be provocative while ignoring similar moves by the Palestinians.

Consider the following. According to data compiled by Peace Now, since the government ended the building freeze on Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria last October, there have been a grand total of just 2,598 buildings started.

It is this small number of new Jewish homes in the territories that has the critics up in arms.

They claim that by expanding Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, Israel is prejudicing the outcome of any final-status negotiations.

And yet, when it comes to Palestinian efforts to create facts on the ground, these very same critics inexplicably fall silent.

Indeed, this past Sunday, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) released data indicating that the number of Palestinian homes in Judea, Samaria and Gaza has soared by over 25% in the past four years.

This year alone, the Palestinians will build more housing units than Israel did in all of last year, even though our population is more than three times the size of theirs.

According to the PCBS, in 2011 the Palestinians will finish a whopping 33,822 dwellings, or 13 times the number currently being built by Jews in Judea and Samaria.

There is no doubt that this feverish building activity by the Palestinians will have an enormous impact on the ground, greatly expanding their presence in the “disputed” territories.

So why, then, is this too not regarded as a “provocation” that undermines peace efforts? Or is it only when Jews lay down cement that construction suddenly becomes confrontational? I guess not all “provocations” are created equal.

The fact is that it is neither logical nor fair to expect Israel to freeze building in Judea and Samaria or anywhere else while the Palestinians are busy at work.

Read the full article here.

Check out my previous post in response to this condemnation.

Gilo is a neighborhood, not a settlement.  Saeb Erekat even offered Gilo to Israel in 2008, although this offer led to nowhere, mainly because of the prospect of a divided Jerusalem.  Why now are the Palestinians and the world growing so upset over the natural building in a neighborhood, which would remain part of Israel in any peace agreement, and when the Palestinians build much more in the disputed territory?

In 2009, France stated that settlement building in Gilo is not an obstacle to peace.

I can't fully explain why countries like America and the U.K. are condemning this.  Perhaps they want to appease the Palestinians too, or they just don't know that much about Gilo.  Maybe it's become so implanted in their brains that when an Israeli builds a home, it's gotta be provocative and terrible and worthy of condemnation.

But I can answer you why the Palestinians are condemning it.  They're condemning it because otherwise they'd have no excuse as to why they can't return to the negotiating table.

Mind you, asking that Israel give up everything prior to negotiations/negotiating over negotiations isn't really a good excuse either...

Nor is asking for a freeze to settlement construction when Netanyahu did precisely that - an unprecedented 10 month settlement freeze.  What does Abbas do? Refuses to negotiaties, walks to the negotiating table in the tenth month, and when the month is over, and the freeze is lifted, leaves the table. 

If they don't even care about negotiating - as seen by the settlement freeze and Abbas walking in on the tenth month - then how can the world expect them to make peace?

Peace requires two parties.  But it requires more than that.  It requires two parties who are willing to make peace.

Israel has shown that multiple times - whether when giving back Sinai Peninsula to make peace with Egypt, when making peace with Jordan, when accepting Oslo Accords, during Camp David Accords, during Taba Accords, when they uprooted their own citizens from Gaza and got 12000 rockets in return, and when Prime Minister Olmert offered the most generous offer in 2008 which Abbas refused.